You have just finished your years as a student at thelocal fighter's guild. After much practice and sweat youhave finally completed your training and are ready to embarkupon a perilous adventure. As a test of your skills, thelocal guildmasters have sent you into the Dungeons of Doom.Your task is to return with the Amulet of Yendor. Yourreward for the completion of this task will be a fullmembership in the local guild. In addition, you are allowedto keep all the loot you bring back from the dungeons.

In preparation for your journey, you are given anenchanted mace, a bow, and a quiver of arrows taken from adragon's hoard in the far off Dark Mountains. You are alsooutfitted with elf-crafted armor and given enough food toreach the dungeons. You say goodbye to family and friendsfor what may be the last time and head up the road.

You set out on your way to the dungeons and afterseveral days of uneventful travel, you see the ancient ruinsthat mark the entrance to the Dungeons of Doom. It is lateat night, so you make camp at the entrance and spend thenight sleeping under the open skies. In the morning yougather your weapons, put on your armor, eat what is almostyour last food, and enter the dungeons.

2. What is going on here?

You have just begun a game of rogue. Your goal is tograb as much treasure as you can, find the Amulet of Yendor,and get out of the Dungeons of Doom alive. On the screen, amap of where you have been and what you have seen on thecurrent dungeon level is kept. As you explore more of thelevel, it appears on the screen in front of you.

Rogue differs from most computer fantasy games in thatit is screen oriented. Commands are all one or two keys-trokes[1] and the results of your commands are displayedgraphically on the screen rather than being explained inwords.[2]

Another major difference between rogue and other com-puter fantasy games is that once you have solved all thepuzzles in a standard fantasy game, it has lost most of itsexcitement and it ceases to be fun. Rogue, on the other____________________ [1] As opposed to pseudo English sentences. [2] A minimum screen size of 24 lines by 80 columns isrequired. If the screen is larger, only the 24x80 sectionwill be used for the map.

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hand, generates a new dungeon every time you play it andeven the author finds it an entertaining and exciting game.

3. What do all those things on the screen mean?

In order to understand what is going on in rogue youhave to first get some grasp of what rogue is doing with thescreen. The rogue screen is intended to replace the "Youcan see ..." descriptions of standard fantasy games. Figure1 is a sample of what a rogue screen might look like.

3.1. The bottom line

At the bottom line of the screen are a few pieces ofcryptic information describing your current status. Here isan explanation of what these things mean:

Level This number indicates how deep you have gone in the dungeon. It starts at one and goes up as you go deeper into the dungeon.

Gold The number of gold pieces you have managed to find and keep with you so far.

Hp Your current and maximum health points. Health points indicate how much damage you can take before you die. The more you get hit in a fight, the lower they get. You can regain health points by resting. The number in parentheses is the maximum number your health points can reach.

Str Your current strength and maximum ever strength. This can be any integer less than or equal to 31, or

greater than or equal to three. The higher the number, the stronger you are. The number in the parentheses is the maximum strength you have attained so far this game.

Arm Your current armor protection. This number indicates how effective your armor is in stopping blows from unfriendly creatures. The higher this number is, the more effective the armor.

Exp These two numbers give your current experience level and experience points. As you do things, you gain experience points. At certain experience point totals, you gain an experience level. The more experienced you are, the better you are able to fight and to withstand magical attacks.

3.2. The top line

The top line of the screen is reserved for printingmessages that describe things that are impossible torepresent visually. If you see a "--More--" on the topline, this means that rogue wants to print another messageon the screen, but it wants to make certain that you haveread the one that is there first. To read the next message,just type a space.

3.3. The rest of the screen

The rest of the screen is the map of the level as youhave explored it so far. Each symbol on the screenrepresents something. Here is a list of what the varioussymbols mean:

@ This symbol represents you, the adventurer.

-| These symbols represent the walls of rooms.

+ A door to/from a room.

. The floor of a room.

# The floor of a passage between rooms.

* A pile or pot of gold.

) A weapon of some sort.

] A piece of armor.

! A flask containing a magic potion.

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? A piece of paper, usually a magic scroll.

= A ring with magic properties

/ A magical staff or wand

ˆ A trap, watch out for these.

% A staircase to other levels

: A piece of food.

A-Z The uppercase letters represent the various inhabitants of the Dungeons of Doom. Watch out, they can be nasty and vicious.

4. Commands

Commands are given to rogue by typing one or two char-acters. Most commands can be preceded by a count to repeatthem (e.g. typing "10s" will do ten searches). Commands forwhich counts make no sense have the count ignored. To can-cel a count or a prefix, type . The list of com-mands is rather long, but it can be read at any time duringthe game with the "?" command. Here it is for reference,with a short explanation of each command.

? The help command. Asks for a character to give help on. If you type a "*", it will list all the commands, otherwise it will explain what the character you typed does.

/ This is the "What is that on the screen?" command. A "/" followed by any character that you see on the level, will tell you what that character is. For instance, typing "/@" will tell you that the "@" symbol represents you, the player.

h, H, ˆH Move left. You move one space to the left. If you use upper case "h", you will continue to move left until you run into something. This works for all movement commands (e.g. "L" means run in direction "l") If you use the "control" "h", you will continue moving in the specified direction until you pass something interest- ing or run into a wall. You should experiment with this, since it is a very useful command, but very dif- ficult to describe. This also works for all movement commands.

j Move down. - 4 -

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k Move up.

l Move right.

y Move diagonally up and left.

u Move diagonally up and right.

b Move diagonally down and left.

n Move diagonally down and right.

t Throw an object. This is a prefix command. When fol- lowed with a direction it throws an object in the specified direction. (e.g. type "th" to throw some- thing to the left.)

f Fight until someone dies. When followed with a direc- tion this will force you to fight the creature in that direction until either you or it bites the big one.

m Move onto something without picking it up. This will move you one space in the direction you specify and, if there is an object there you can pick up, it won't do it.

z Zap prefix. Point a staff or wand in a given direction and fire it. Even non-directional staves must be pointed in some direction to be used.

ˆ Identify trap command. If a trap is on your map and you can't remember what type it is, you can get rogue to remind you by getting next to it and typing "ˆ" fol- lowed by the direction that would move you on top of it.

s Search for traps and secret doors. Examine each space immediately adjacent to you for the existence of a trap or secret door. There is a large chance that even if there is something there, you won't find it, so you might have to search a while before you find something.

> Climb down a staircase to the next level. Not surpris- ingly, this can only be done if you are standing on staircase.

< Climb up a staircase to the level above. This can't be done without the Amulet of Yendor in your possession.

. Rest. This is the "do nothing" command. This is good for waiting and healing.

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* Inventory. List what you are carrying in your pack.

I Selective inventory. Tells you what a single item in your pack is.

q Quaff one of the potions you are carrying.

r Read one of the scrolls in your pack.

e Eat food from your pack.

w Wield a weapon. Take a weapon out of your pack and carry it for use in combat, replacing the one you are currently using (if any).

W Wear armor. You can only wear one suit of armor at a time. This takes extra time.

T Take armor off. You can't remove armor that is cursed. This takes extra time.

P Put on a ring. You can wear only two rings at a time (one on each hand). If you aren't wearing any rings, this command will ask you which hand you want to wear it on, otherwise, it will place it on the unused hand. The program assumes that you wield your sword in your right hand.

R Remove a ring. If you are only wearing one ring, this command takes it off. If you are wearing two, it will ask you which one you wish to remove,

d Drop an object. Take something out of your pack and leave it lying on the floor. Only one object can occupy each space. You cannot drop a cursed object at all if you are wielding or wearing it.

c Call an object something. If you have a type of object in your pack which you wish to remember something about, you can use the call command to give a name to that type of object. This is usually used when you figure out what a potion, scroll, ring, or staff is after you pick it up, or when you want to remember which of those swords in your pack you were wielding.

D Print out which things you've discovered something about. This command will ask you what type of thing you are interested in. If you type the character for a given type of object (e.g. "!" for potion) it will tell you which kinds of that type of object you've discovered (i.e., figured out what they are). This command works for potions, scrolls, rings, and staves and wands. - 6 -

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o Examine and set options. This command is further explained in the section on options.

ˆR Redraws the screen. Useful if spurious messages or transmission errors have messed up the display.

ˆP Print last message. Useful when a message disappears before you can read it. This only repeats the last message that was not a mistyped command so that you don't loose anything by accidentally typing the wrong character instead of ˆP.

Cancel a command, prefix, or count.

! Escape to a shell for some commands.

Q Quit. Leave the game.

S Save the current game in a file. It will ask you whether you wish to use the default save file. Caveat: Rogue won't let you start up a copy of a saved game, and it removes the save file as soon as you start up a restored game. This is to prevent people from saving a game just before a dangerous position and then restart- ing it if they die. To restore a saved game, give the file name as an argument to rogue. As in % rogue save_file

To restart from the default save file (see below), run % rogue -r

v Prints the program version number.

) Print the weapon you are currently wielding

] Print the armor you are currently wearing

= Print the rings you are currently wearing

@ Reprint the status line on the message line

5. Rooms

Rooms in the dungeons are either lit or dark. If youwalk into a lit room, the entire room will be drawn on thescreen as soon as you enter. If you walk into a dark room,it will only be displayed as you explore it. Upon leaving aroom, all monsters inside the room are erased from thescreen. In the darkness you can only see one space in alldirections around you. A corridor is always dark.

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6. Fighting

If you see a monster and you wish to fight it, justattempt to run into it. Many times a monster you find willmind its own business unless you attack it. It is often thecase that discretion is the better part of valor.

7. Objects you can find

When you find something in the dungeon, it is common towant to pick the object up. This is accomplished in rogueby walking over the object (unless you use the "m" prefix,see above). If you are carrying too many things, the pro-gram will tell you and it won't pick up the object, other-wise it will add it to your pack and tell you what you justpicked up.

Many of the commands that operate on objects mustprompt you to find out which object you want to use. If youchange your mind and don't want to do that command afterall, just type an and the command will be aborted.

Some objects, like armor and weapons, are easily dif-ferentiated. Others, like scrolls and potions, are givenlabels which vary according to type. During a game, any twoof the same kind of object with the same label are the sametype. However, the labels will vary from game to game.

When you use one of these labeled objects, if itseffect is obvious, rogue will remember what it is for you.If it's effect isn't extremely obvious you will be askedwhat you want to scribble on it so you will recognize itlater, or you can use the "call" command (see above).

7.1. Weapons

Some weapons, like arrows, come in bunches, but mostcome one at a time. In order to use a weapon, you mustwield it. To fire an arrow out of a bow, you must firstwield the bow, then throw the arrow. You can only wield oneweapon at a time, but you can't change weapons if the oneyou are currently wielding is cursed. The commands to useweapons are "w" (wield) and "t" (throw).

7.2. Armor

There are various sorts of armor lying around in thedungeon. Some of it is enchanted, some is cursed, and someis just normal. Different armor types have different armorprotection. The higher the armor protection, the more pro-tection the armor affords against the blows of monsters.Here is a list of the various armor types and their normalarmor protection: - 8 -

If a piece of armor is enchanted, its armor protection willbe higher than normal. If a suit of armor is cursed, itsarmor protection will be lower, and you will not be able toremove it. However, not all armor with a protection that islower than normal is cursed.

The commands to use weapons are "W" (wear) and "T"(take off).

7.3. Scrolls

Scrolls come with titles in an unknown tongue[3].After you read a scroll, it disappears from your pack. Thecommand to use a scroll is "r" (read).

7.4. Potions

Potions are labeled by the color of the liquid insidethe flask. They disappear after being quaffed. The commandto use a scroll is "q" (quaff).

7.5. Staves and Wands

Staves and wands do the same kinds of things. Stavesare identified by a type of wood; wands by a type of metalor bone. They are generally things you want to do to some-thing over a long distance, so you must point them at whatyou wish to affect to use them. Some staves are notaffected by the direction they are pointed, though. Stavescome with multiple magic charges, the number being random,and when they are used up, the staff is just a piece of woodor metal.

[3] Actually, it's a dialect spoken only by the twenty-seven members of a tribe in Outer Mongolia, but you're notsupposed to know that. - 9 -

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The command to use a wand or staff is "z" (zap)

7.6. Rings

Rings are very useful items, since they are relativelypermanent magic, unlike the usually fleeting effects ofpotions, scrolls, and staves. Of course, the bad rings arealso more powerful. Most rings also cause you to use upfood more rapidly, the rate varying with the type of ring.Rings are differentiated by their stone settings. The com-mands to use rings are "P" (put on) and "R" (remove).

7.7. Food

Food is necessary to keep you going. If you go toolong without eating you will faint, and eventually die ofstarvation. The command to use food is "e" (eat).

8. Options

Due to variations in personal tastes and conceptions ofthe way rogue should do things, there are a set of optionsyou can set that cause rogue to behave in various differentways.

8.1. Setting the options

There are two ways to set the options. The first iswith the "o" command of rogue; the second is with the"ROGUEOPTS" environment variable[4].

8.1.1. Using the `o' command

When you type "o" in rogue, it clears the screen anddisplays the current settings for all the options. It thenplaces the cursor by the value of the first option and waitsfor you to type. You can type a which means to goto the next option, a "-" which means to go to the previousoption, an which means to return to the game, oryou can give the option a value. For boolean options thismerely involves typing "t" for true or "f" for false. Forstring options, type the new value followed by a .

8.1.2. Using the ROGUEOPTS variable

The ROGUEOPTS variable is a string containing a commaseparated list of initial values for the various options.Boolean variables can be turned on by listing their name or

[4] On Version 6 systems, there is no equivalent of theROGUEOPTS feature. - 10 -

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turned off by putting a "no" in front of the name. Thus toset up an environment variable so that jump is on, terse isoff, and the name is set to "Blue Meanie", use the command % setenv ROGUEOPTS "jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie"[5]

8.2. Option list

Here is a list of the options and an explanation ofwhat each one is for. The default value for each isenclosed in square brackets. For character string options,input over fifty characters will be ignored.

terse [noterse] Useful for those who are tired of the sometimes lengthy messages of rogue. This is a useful option for playing on slow terminals, so this option defaults to terse if you are on a slow (1200 baud or under) terminal.

jump [nojump] If this option is set, running moves will not be displayed until you reach the end of the move. This saves considerable cpu and display time. This option defaults to jump if you are using a slow terminal.

flush [noflush] All typeahead is thrown away after each round of bat- tle. This is useful for those who type far ahead and then watch in dismay as a Bat kills them.

seefloor [seefloor] Display the floor around you on the screen as you move through dark rooms. Due to the amount of characters generated, this option defaults to noseefloor if you are using a slow terminal.

passgo [nopassgo] Follow turnings in passageways. If you run in a pas- sage and you run into stone or a wall, rogue will see if it can turn to the right or left. If it can only turn one way, it will turn that way. If it can turn either or neither, it will stop. This is followed strictly, which can sometimes lead to slightly confus- ing occurrences (which is why it defaults to nopassgo).

tombstone [tombstone] Print out the tombstone at the end if you get killed.

[5] For those of you who use the bourne shell, the com-mands would be $ ROGUEOPTS="jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie" $ export ROGUEOPTS - 11 -

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This is nice but slow, so you can turn it off if you like.

inven [overwrite] Inventory type. This can have one of three values: overwrite, slow, or clear. With overwrite the top lines of the map are overwritten with the list when inventory is requested or when "Which item do you wish to . . .? " questions are answered with a "*". How- ever, if the list is longer than a screenful, the screen is cleared. With slow, lists are displayed one item at a time on the top of the screen, and with clear, the screen is cleared, the list is displayed, and then the dungeon level is re-displayed. Due to speed considerations, clear is the default for termi- nals without clear-to-end-of-line capabilities.

name [account name] This is the name of your character. It is used if you get on the top ten scorer's list.

fruit [slime-mold] This should hold the name of a fruit that you enjoy eating. It is basically a whimsey that rogue uses in a couple of places.

file [^/rogue.save] The default file name for saving the game. If your phone is hung up by accident, rogue will automatically save the game in this file. The file name may start with the special character "^" which expands to be your home directory.

9. Scoring

Rogue usually maintains a list of the top scoring peo-ple or scores on your machine. Depending on how it is setup, it can post either the top scores or the top players.In the latter case, each account on the machine can postonly one non-winning score on this list. If you scorehigher than someone else on this list, or better your previ-ous score on the list, you will be inserted in the properplace under your current name. How many scores are kept canalso be set up by whoever installs it on your machine.

If you quit the game, you get out with all of your goldintact. If, however, you get killed in the Dungeons ofDoom, your body is forwarded to your next-of-kin, along with90% of your gold; ten percent of your gold is kept by the

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Dungeons' wizard as a fee[6]. This should make you considerwhether you want to take one last hit at that monster andpossibly live, or quit and thus stop with whatever you have.If you quit, you do get all your gold, but if you swing andlive, you might find more.

If you just want to see what the current topplayers/games list is, you can type % rogue -s

10. Acknowledgements

Rogue was originally conceived of by Glenn Wichman andMichael Toy. Ken Arnold and Michael Toy then smoothed outthe user interface, and added jillions of new features. Wewould like to thank Bob Arnold, Michelle Busch, AndyHatcher, Kipp Hickman, Mark Horton, Daniel Jensen, Bill Joy,Joe Kalash, Steve Maurer, Marty McNary, Jan Miller, andScott Nelson for their ideas and assistance; and also theteeming multitudes who graciously ignored work, school, andsocial life to play rogue and send us bugs, complaints,suggestions, and just plain flames. And also Mom.

[6] The Dungeon's wizard is named Wally the Wonder Badg-er. Invocations should be accompanied by a sizable dona-tive.